


Time After Time

by katayla



Category: Dawson's Creek
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5502050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/pseuds/katayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They remember everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time After Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waltzmatildah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/gifts).



> Thank you, betas!

"I remember everything," he whispered into her ear. And, in that moment, they _did._

**3000 BCE**

"Come with me. Don't you want to see what's out there?" Pacey said. He brushed a hand over her cheek. "I don't want to go without you."

Joey looked back at the collection of huts they had grown up in, and then towards the hills and valleys Pacey so desperately wanted to explore.

"You're asking me to leave everything I've ever known. You're asking me to leave . . . ."

"Him," he finished softly. 

She bit her lip and looked down.

"I never wanted you to have to choose, but I can't stay here," Pacey said

"I don't want to lose you."

"You don't have to."

Joey looked back again at the village, and thought of her family, and the boy she had called her best friend for so long. And then at Pacey, who had been there for her in ways that no one else ever had been.

And she made her decision.

**600 CE**

Joey pulled back on her horse's reins and slowed down. She shouldn't have done it. She knew she shouldn't have, because Pacey immediately slowed down, too. And the instant the others had disappeared further into the woods, he slipped off his horse and held out his hand to hers.

"My lady?"

But she ignored the hand and dismounted on her own . . . and into his waiting arms. His lips were on hers in an instant, the feel of them all too familiar for a woman who was married to someone else.

" _Joey_ ," he gasped. 

He only ever called her that in private, and, every time, it made her want to cry, as she imagined years and years of him saying her name, if only . . . . but it could never be.

She pulled back from him.

"Do you ever feel guilty?" she asked. An old, old question between the two of them.

"He stopped making you happy a long time ago," Pacey said.

"He's the _king_ , and he's your best friend . . . isn't he?"

Pacey smiled and shook his head. "You mean, I'm not acting like it? Well--"

He bit off his words, but she could follow his line of thought. "And I'm not acting like his wife."

She put her hand on her horse, ready to mount. "We can't keep doing this."

But they would.

**1680**

Joey slipped out of her bunk, and made her way to the deck. Pacey was there, as he always was. He stood watch every night and, when she woke up early enough, she'd join him for the last of it.

"Captain says we're three days out," he said, when she stepped next to him.

It had become the first thing he said to her each morning. A countdown to something she no longer wanted to think about it.

"Come with me," she said. "You don't have to stay."

"And do what?" Pacey said. "I ran away from home so I didn't have to be a farmer."

"It's the new world! There are many opportunities. There _must_ be." Her voice was fierce. Her father had signed her indentured servant contract, but she had made her peace with it. It was a chance to get away, and it had to be better than where she grew up.

"And wait five years for you?"

Joey smiled and inched closer to him. "I'm told indentured servants can marry, if we get approval."

"Hmm," he said, and took her hand. "America is the place for new dreams, they say."

**1800**

Maybe things would've been different if she'd met Pacey on her first visit to the house. But he'd been away, and, by the time she first laid eyes on him, her engagement to his brother had been announced, and the wedding was only a month away. And, anyway, he wasn't the heir. The terms of the marriage were quite clear. She would get a title and his family would have money again. 

So maybe it didn't matter anyway. Maybe she'd have been stuck no matter what.

"Should we be alone together?" Joey asked. She'd came by the house for a visit and had been waiting for the ladies of the house to appear when Pacey strolled into the room.

He sat down next to her. "You're practically my sister."

And he stretched out an arm behind her. She closed her eyes and tried not to imagine that hand finding its way around her body. She had barely touched any man, even her betrothed, but Pacey made her dream of things she'd only heard whispers about.

But she was a good girl, so she sat up straighter. And he gave her that insolent, younger son grin.

"Scared?" he asked.

"Of what?" she asked. There were so very, very many things to be scared of in her life right now.

"This," he whispered and touched a finger on her bare wrist.

She shivered and closed her eyes. He started inching her glove off her hand. His thumb caressed her palm and she could feel him pulling her now gloveless hand towards his mouth.

But then she heard a noise outside the door, so she snatched hand and glove back. She gave him one last glance before the door opened.

"Yes," she said.

**1917**

Pacey wasn't a very good correspondent. It didn't surprise Joey, but didn't he _know_ how much his letters meant to her? Every letter was a promise that he was all right, and that everything they'd said to each other was real.

Weeks would go by without a letter and she would scan the casualty lists, and then scan them again, just to be sure.

But then a letter would come and he'd make jokes and say sweet things and it was as if he were writing from the other room. She would fall asleep those nights, and dream his letters. Dream of him with her, touching her and kissing her. (Other nights, there were dreams she didn't like to remember.)

And she would write him back, trying to impart with her pen all the good luck she might possibly possess. He would make it through this and they would be together again. They would be happy.

It would be two years before she found out if she was right.

**2000**

Joey swayed in Pacey's arms and, when the memories stopped washing over her, opened her eyes, ready to tell him everything he wanted to hear.

And then Dawson ruined everything.


End file.
